Here the strawberries has a price of 2 boxes for 50 SEK, that’s approximately $7.10 or €5.65. I think it’s a bit too early to buy them. There are not that long season for strawberries in Sweden unfortunately, due to the cold climate.

Strawberries goes VERY WELL to Champagne…. just saying… lol…

©Lifecruiser Love Strawberries

Other Strawberry related posts by Lifecruiser:

Afternoon Drink Snack
How Swedes Makes Pancakes
 

Julita existed already in the Viking era and was an medieval monastery that later became a state domain and manor owned by Swedish nobility. You can see that by it’s interiors and surrounded parks, with the architectural different green house and kitchen garden.

It was also the first Swedish Museum of Agriculture that started with gene banks in the seventies, in close collaboration with the Nordic Gene Bank NGB – and still is – for a lot of different plants, fruits and flowers. Their agricultural exhibits may interest garden enthusiasts, as well as their different markets and festivals.

Tours of the Julita Manor house is hold in the weekends in May/September and every day in June, July and August. There are also other different exhibitions, family activities and farm animals which will please the young ones.

There are simply beautiful decorated B&B rooms in the manor wings from the 17th century for around 12-1400 SEK/night and double room. There is also a newer hostel alternative in another building for around 600 SEK/night for a two-beds room.

If you want something different: ask if the more unusual Octagon House – an old distillery from around the 1800s down by the lake – is available.

For the Gourmet’s like myself, there is the Julita Skans Cafe and a well recommended restaurant, also mentioned in the White Guide: Julita Wärdshus, julitawardshus.se down at the lake shore, run by the silver awarded (Bocuse d’Or 2011 in Lyon) chef Tommy Myllymäki and Magnus Saleborn.

If you’re planning an unusual wedding, there is even a Skansen church where you have the unique opportunity to get married with your beloved one. In fact: if we weren’t already married, we would have jumped on this opportunity for sure!

There is other things to do in the area too, many beautiful walking paths or why not go horse back riding? There are around 400 kilometers riding tracks, have a look at www.ridleden.se.

Julita Gård is even offering a guest stable if you’re on the riding tracks, see the wonderful old stable building in the photo below.

If you’re planning to be there in May: don’t miss when the cows are put out to pasture at Julita, the pure joy of the cows are entertainment not only for children, but also for adults. Date and time use to be available at nordiskamuseet.se/julita at the start of May, the date for 2012 is the 6th of May.

Despite the dull weather when we were there in the beginning of March, we succeeded to get a few decent travel photos showing the interesting architecture. We’ll definitely go there again in the summer season when the place have flourished up.

Our reason for being curious of this special Mansion is that my grandparents once upon a time had a farm worker employed, that had been working as some kind of maintenance manager at Julita Gård, before he came to work for them.

Have a look at Lifecruiser Julita Gård photo slideshow here.

In the Google map below you can see were it is located and exactly how rural the area is.

Official info at: Nordiska Museets webpage about Julita.

How to get there: by car on road 214 or take the train to Katrineholm and then the bus to Julita: plan your trip to Julita by Swedish trip robot Resrobot.se.

©Lifecruiser Love Open Air Museums
 

Have I told you before that Mr Lifecruiser is the very best at winning those kind of funfair toys for me? He always win something. I have to stop him, otherwise we would have our whole home filled with cuddly toys!

He has such an accurate firing when it comes to aiming in the funfair stalls and winning toys… We ended up with some unusual pets that way…

©Lifecruiser Love Cuddly Toys
 

Katarina and her colleague offered baths as follows:
• Total bath with birch branches and soap 10 coins
• Foot bath 5 coins
• Brushed on your back by young maid 2 coins
• Brushed on your back by old maid 1 coin

This photo below is one of my favorite travel photos. It got such an ancient look….

What do you say? Need a proper scrub? *lol*

You can see more Visby medieval photos 2011 by Lifecruiser at Flickr.

Lifecruiser ♥ Medieval Visby Events

The Cog Ship type was the absolute most common in northern Europe from the beginning of 1100 and long into the 15th century. They have a very flat carvel built bottom with a high fore and stern, making them more easy to defend during sea battles.

The Cogs only has one mast with one big raw canvas sail. This ship, Tvekamp af Elbogen, canvas is 225 square meter big and not allowed to set sail with passengers aboard, due to security issues. Instead we went by a help motor with a power of 70kW.

The project to build this Cog Ship was the Nordic countries biggest medieval project during 1998-2003 and the responsibility of Fotevikens Museum, which had both the archeological and overall responsibility to build those scientific reconstructions.

The original Cog Ship was wrecked outside the town of Skanör in the southern part of Sweden and it was not until the beginning of 1990′s the ship findings were dug out. The Cog was built in the Mecklenburg area and is the biggest Cog ship found so far.

The Cog Ship had at least four guns on deck which makes it the worlds oldest known fire-armed gun ship. Probably this ship was included in a pirate fleet which were plundering the Nordic coasts after that Queen Margareta had taken the power in 1389 and captured the Swedish/German King Albrekt of Mecklenburg.

From his prison, King Albrekt succeeded to get out his orders to his old home country Mecklenburg to gather a fleet and plunder the queens coasts. During several years thousands of sailors and warriors were sent out from just that area where Skanörs Cog Ship were built at the same time.

They loaded one of the guns with flour and oats and did fire it for us when we were returning to the Visby harbor, giving us a great show how the guns could bang. As you can see in the photo above the crew were wearing authentic clothes.

Today’s Cog Ship Tvekamp af Elbogen, has been out at longer sea trips and several German harbors has been on call. Even a trip north along the Swedish west coast. Those trips are of big scientific value, to test the ships seaworthiness and to get insight in how it was back in the medieval time era around the Baltic Sea.

Of course the ship crew was wearing medieval dresses to get it as authentic as possible, but also some of the passengers I think, since it were a Medieval festival in Visby this past week. A very nice touch, don’t you think?

Information source: The Swedish Archeological Open Air Museum of Foteviken, which also has a lot of historical activities – even a Viking village.

Click to see more of Lifecruiser Cog Ship Photos at Flickr.

Lifecruiser ♥ Old Ships

Great sleeping pals found at the Gotland (island at Sweden’s east coast) ferry deck summer 2008. The ferry ride takes about 3 hours.

Merry or not, but it seemed like they had been participating at the Medieval festival week in Visby old town, which can be pretty exhausting obviously…

Lifecruiser ♥ Gotland Island
 

• Scandinavian Boat Show 12-14 November 2010
• Everything for Health Fair 12-14 November 2010
• The Good Kitchen Fair 12-14 November 2010
• Photo Fair 26-28 November 2010
• Stockholm International Dog Show 18-19 Dec

Where? At Stockholmsmässan (Stockholm International Fairs & Congress Center) which is situated in the southwest area of Stockholm.

From Stockholm central station you can reach the fair with a commuter train in 9 minutes, getting off at Älvsjö station.

Lifecruiser ♥ Stockholm Fairs